A friend who recently left the desert Southwest was lamenting his regular hikes in Phoenix. There’s one trail he’d often visit after work, he told me, a thigh-burner that ascends 1,400 feet in just a mile. It’s a lush trail, resplendent with saguaro and teddy-bear cholla, and offers panoramic views of the valley. Maybe best of all, it’s a 20-minute drive from downtown Phoenix. I’ve gone hiking a couple of times a week for years, and often repeat hikes. But I’d never articulated why I go back to the same places over and over again.
Then, I thought about Kraft Mountain. I can’t remember the first time I did the loop, but I do remember the first time I heard about it. I’d just moved to Vegas. I must have been busy, or out of town, when a group of friends went to Calico Basin. My then-boyfriend got out ahead of the group, somehow lost them, and stumbled downhill, spearing himself on yucca along the way. (He was from Portland and shocked that yucca wasn’t soft and bendy.) I was hiking around Middle and South Oak Creek a lot then — wonderful trails, but mostly flat — and liked the sound of Kraft Mountain: three and a half miles, brief incline, red rocks, iconic (and dangerous) Mojave plants.
A regular hike — I understand, thanks to Kraft Mountain — is easily accessible and relatively short, but still a workout. It’s the kind of hike that doesn’t require much mental energy to navigate. It’s a place where I can turn my brain off. When I’m stressed, I will often drive out to Calico Basin and hustle up Kraft’s ascent, passing creosote bushes, yucca, blackbrush, antelope brush, and barrel cacti. By the time I reach the top, my brain is brimming with oxygen and my heart is pounding. I look out to the creosote-studded plain below and feel grateful I got outside.
The rest of the hike is a salve to the addled mind. The dry river carries me along like water. Oak trees shade the riverbed; boulders that look like taffy offer delightful stretches of scrambling. In the winter, I encounter a dozen climbers dangling off the rocks at the trail’s end, sometimes so many that the place feels like an adult jungle gym. But I’m never annoyed at them. We’re all enjoying the desert.
Though I go to Kraft to stop thinking, the mountain often surprises me. Once, I hiked it during monsoon season, and recent rain had turned the dry riverbed into an actual river. I had grown accustomed to taking the same paths through the riverbed, and now I had to reorient myself. I scrambled up a wall or two, hopped rocks until I reached dry land. Another time, thousands of electric yellow caterpillars were out, and I had to take care not to step on them. Sometimes the barrel cacti are blossoming. Once I saw a rattle snake. The trail’s texture — the way the ground feels, the trees’ colors — changes every season.
I often need Kraft Mountain to help me lose my thoughts. But the trail also snaps me out of complacency when I need to pay attention.
